American Studies

An introduction to the theories of the environment, theories of justice in the context of environmental policy and planning and to histories of poor peoples' struggles around the unequal distribution of toxic waste. (ESJ) 

{Summer, Fall, Spring}

This course focuses on the interdisciplinary study of the construction of gender as a category. Readings will span cross-cultural and historical materials, including literary, artistic and popular representations of masculinity and femininity in America. (GS)

Survey of basic concepts of popular culture and methods for its study. Source materials are drawn from diverse areas–television, film, comics, music and sports. (PC)

An interdisciplinary introduction to the issues of race, class and ethnicity in American life and society. Meets New Mexico Lower-Division General Education Common Core Curriculum Area IV: Social/Behavioral Sciences. (RCE)

{Summer, Fall, Spring}

Provides both an introduction to the complex history and culture of the Southwestern United States and a demonstration of the possibilities of the interdisciplinary study of regional American culture.  It is multicultural in its content as it is multidisciplinary in its methodology.  Meets New Mexico Lower-Division General Education Common Core Curriculum Area V: Humanities and Fine Arts. (SS)

{Summer, Fall, Spring}

The content of this course varies by semester. Topics include: America in the 50s; America in the 60s–70s; the American family; power and culture; schooling in America. (G)

(Also offered as CCS 201, NATV 201)        

Introductory survey of the Mexican American experience in the United States, with special reference to New Mexico. Exploration of historical, political, social, and cultural dimensions. (RCE)

(Also offered as NATV 252)

Introductory survey of Native American History, culture and contemporary issues. Students read literature by and about Native Americans covering a variety of topics including tribal sovereignty, federal policy, activism, economic development, education and community life. (RCE)

This class will introduce students to the interdisciplinary field of American Studies through focused thematic inquiry drawing on two areas of focus in the department. (G)

{Fall, Spring}

(Also offered as POLS 303)

Introduction to the role of law and legal institutions in politics and society. (C)

An interdisciplinary approach to the analysis of social movements, focusing on cultural and social formations of these movements. Topics include: folklore of social movements; labor struggles; peace movements; land conflicts. (C)

Varying topics undergraduate course. An in-depth study of one subject in the field of interdisciplinary culture studies. Topics may include material culture, folklore, consumerism, public culture, critical theory, cultural identity and language and representation. (C)

Students will learn the history of violin making and be exposed to cultural and historical materials related to religious, ritual and folk violin performances and dances practiced in New Mexico since the early 17th century.

The content of this course varies by semester. Topics may include: environmental justice, social movements, law and justice, race and nature, state violence, environmental social theory. (ESJ) 

This course will examine the social commentary of George Romero's zombie films. We will consider how Romero's zombies serve as a vehicle to examine social anxieties regarding science, technology, nature, race, class and consumerism.

Varying subjects deriving from the contemporary cultural studies focus on matters of gender. Topics include: feminist theory; gender and nature; the factor of gender in disciplinary and interdisciplinary studies. (GS)

Content varies by semester. Topics include: popular music, popular culture of the 1960s; sex and gender in popular culture; chicano/a vernacular culture; black popular culture; popular environmentalism. (PC)

Varying subjects, based in theoretical and/or historical approaches. Topics include: sex and gender in popular film; films of the nuclear age; African-American film; ethnicity in American cinema; film theory. (PC)

This course will examine the origins, transmissions, and embedded meanings within contemporary urban legends, with a specific focus on how these legends both perpetuate and reflect attitudes toward race, gender, and politics. (PC)

(Also offered as RELG 344)

This course examines Catholic children and adolescents in the United States over two centuries, considering how Catholic children experience the world, and how the Church and society imagine Catholic children.

(Also offered as RELG 345)

This course considers religious communities inhabiting the present-day American West, from the eighteenth century onward, and critically examines interpretations of the West that tie it to a national religious destiny.

(Also offered as RELG 346)

This course examines New Mexican religion from the seventeenth century onward, considering how life here shapes religious practice, and how religion factors in how visitors imagine and represent inhabitants.

(Also offered as RELG 351)

This course introduces students to the history of Roman Catholicism in the United States, emphasizing the interaction of Catholicism with politics and culture, and the religious lives of ordinary Catholics.

Offers specialized topics on an alternating basis dealing with race, class and ethnicity in the formation of American life and society. Subject areas include immigration, class formation, conquest, colonization, public policy and civil rights. (RCE)

(Also offered as AFST 307)

A survey of the lives of Blacks in the American West (1528–1918). (RCE)

An interdisciplinary investigation of the development of race as a set of power relations, lived identities and ideas. Pays particular attention to the relationship of race to work, immigration, gender, culture and intellectual life. (RCE)

Topical survey of theoretical approaches, research methodologies and subject areas within the interdisciplinary field of Native American Studies. (RCE)

Offers topics addressing African-American social, cultural, political and intellectual life. Topics include: black social movements, African-American intellectual history, black cultural studies, slavery in the Americas. (RCE)

This interdisciplinary topics course examines the fastest growing population in the U.S. and includes Latino intellectual history, political and economic relations, recovery projects, music, film and media representations and environment, community and post-colonial studies. (RCE)

Offers topics dealing with the social, cultural and technological developments among the people of the Southwest. Topics include folk art and material culture; rural, urban and border communities; traditional healing; travel and tourism; Hispano/Chicanos after 1848. (SS)

Covers the Chicano/Latino experience through its depiction on film and from the perspective of Latino filmmaking. The course analyzes film as communication, film narration, symbolism and subjectivity. (SS)

Introduces students to interdisciplinary approaches in the study of American culture, focusing on “Race, Ethnicity, Gender and National Identity,” “Media, Popular Culture, and Cultural Studies,” “Critical Regionalism,” and “Environment, Science and Technology.” (G)

{Fall}

An analysis of the value of synthesis in liberal scholarship. Focus will be on cooperative interdisciplinary research. (G)

{Spring only}

Capstone course for majors/minors in the Southwest Studies that synthesizes current scholarship on critical regionalism: borderlands studies, trans-nationalism, indigeneity, immigration and other topics. Students develop research, analysis and writing to produce an original research paper. (SS)

(G)

Involves internships in off-campus learning experiences related to the study of American and regional culture and character, such as work in local communities and with relevant institutions. (G)

Development and writing of senior honors thesis under supervision of faculty advisor. (G)

Prerequisite: 285.

Restriction: permission of undergraduate director.

{Spring}

Examines the basic texts and methods in the field of American studies through discussion and critical/analytical writing assignments. Required for all American Studies graduate students; restricted to graduate students in the department. (G)

{Fall}

Introducing students to a range of American Studies theories and methods, this spring seminar is the second in the required sequence of the American Studies core graduate curriculum and builds on the American Studies proseminar.

Prerequisite: 500.

Restriction: admitted to graduate program in American Studies.

This seminar reviews: 1) archival and library research; 2) data collection and fieldwork (plus subsequent analysis and presentation of data); 3) processes of hypotheses and theory building; and 4) development of a research proposal. (G)

Prerequisite: 500 and 501.

Restriction: admitted to graduate program in American Studies.

{Spring}

An interdisciplinary approach to the analysis of social movements, focusing on cultural and social formations of these movements. Topics include: folklore of social movements; labor struggles; peace movements; land conflicts. (C)

An in-depth study of one subject in the field of interdisciplinary culture studies. Topics may include material culture, folklore, consumerism, public culture, critical theory, cultural identity and postcolonial studies. (C)

This seminar focuses on the interdisciplinary study and critical theorization of social movements, examining what forms of conflict, social collectivity, and power have been mobilized and conceived as social movements historically and in the present.

Decentering the U.S. from its sense of entitlement to America, this course explores hemispheric relations, the history of the U.S. as an imperial power, and the current context of the transnationalization and globalization of cultures. (C)

This course examines the multiple dimensions of neoliberal formation through the particular historical, social, political, and cultural dynamics of the neoliberal project, from the selective redeployment of classical liberalism to the crisis of contemporary globalization.

This course will investigate the role of visual experience in everyday life. The assigned works represent a variety of interdisciplinary approaches to American visual culture, including photography, film, television, material culture, and public art. (C)

Graduate seminars; content varies. Topics include: democracy, culture and history; American landscapes; history and narrative. (C)

Graduate study of subjects in Environmental and Social Justice. Content varies by semester and topics may include: science/technology studies, environmental justice, political economy of nature, environmental social movements, race and nature, law and violence. (ESJ)

This class examines struggles over life itself from the perspective of poor communities. It considers how people organize against a world in which poor communities lack the basic conditions for a healthy life. 

Varying subjects deriving from the contemporary cultural studies focus on matters of gender. Topics include: feminist theory; gender and nature; the factor of gender in disciplinary and interdisciplinary studies. (GS)

Content varies by semester. Topics include: popular music, popular culture of the 1960s; sex and gender in popular culture; chicano/a vernacular culture; black popular culture; popular environmentalism. (PC)

Varying subjects, based in theoretical and/or historical approaches. Topics include: sex and gender in popular film; films of the nuclear age; African-American film; ethnicity in American cinema; film theory. (PC)

Offers specialized topics on an alternating basis dealing with race, class and ethnicity in the formation of American life and society. Subject areas include immigration, class formation, conquest, colonization, public policy and civil rights. (RCE)

This graduate seminar is an interdisciplinary and comparative examination of the histories, practices, and consequences of modern colonialism and the variety of indigenous and anticolonial responses to these conditions.

Seminar offering topical survey of theoretical approaches, research methodologies and subject areas within the interdisciplinary field of Native American Studies. (RCE)

Offers topics addressing African-American social, cultural, political and intellectual life. Topics include: black social movements, African-American intellectual history, black cultural studies, slavery in the Americas. (RCE)

This interdisciplinary topics course examines the fastest growing population in the U.S. and includes Latino intellectual history, political and economic relations, recovery projects, music, film and media representations and environment, community and post-colonial studies. (RCE)

Offers topics dealing with the social, cultural and technological developments among the people of the Southwest. Topics include folk art and material culture; rural, urban and border communities; traditional healing; travel and tourism; Hispano/Chicanos after 1848. (SS)

(G)

Offered on a CR/NC basis only.

(G)

For Ph.D. candidates only.

(G)

Offered on a CR/NC basis only.